1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mechanisms for accessing computer applications in a wireless environment. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus that provides single sign-on services that facilitate accessing computer applications from wireless computing devices.
2. Related Art
As the use of wireless devices continues to grow at an exponential rate, users of these devices are becoming increasingly frustrated with existing mechanisms for accessing computer applications located on remote application servers through these wireless devices. Some of these wireless devices, for example personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cell phones, have cumbersome interfaces for entering authentication data, such as user names and passwords.
During a particular session, a user desiring to access an application through a wireless device first establishes a connection between the wireless device and a wireless gateway. This wireless gateway subsequently acts as a proxy for the user, which allows the user to communicate with the application. In doing so, the wireless gateway performs any required transformations on the data to make it compatible with the wireless device and transmits the data to the wireless device.
When the wireless gateway first contacts the application on behalf of the user, the application typically requests authentication credentials such as a user name and a password. The wireless gateway forwards this request to the user of the wireless device who responds with the authentication credentials. The wireless gateway then forwards the credentials to the application for verification. After the user has been authenticated, the session with the application can proceed.
If at a later time within the same session, the user desires to switch to a second application, the user must repeat the same sequence of authentication operations with the second application. Additionally, the user is typically “logged out” of the first application, which means that the user must re-authenticate with the first application if the user later desires to reaccess the first application.
Hence, what is needed is a method and an apparatus that allows a user to access multiple computer applications in a wireless environment without the problems described above.